Man's Search for Meaning
Subtitle: an introduction to logotherapy
By: by Viktor E. Frankl ; A newly rev. and enl., ed. of From death-camp to existentalism. Translated by Ilse Lasch. Pref. by Gordon W. Allport
Edition: Revised edition
Publisher: Beacon Press
Published: 1963
Place of publication: Boston
Language: eng
Translated from: ger
Translation of: ... trotzdem Ja zum Leben sagen
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 142
Copyright date: 1962
Subjects: Psychologists; Psychological aspects; Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945); Logotherapy; Personal narratives; Biography
Work titles: Psycholog erlebt das Konzentrationslager
Description: This is a profound revelation of a psychiatrist's search for meaning for life in the midst of the horrors of Nazi death camps —a search that had tremendous impact on the whole field of psychology and psychiatry, since out of it came Dr. Frankl's theory of logotherapy," a modern and positive approach to the rnentally or spiritually disturbed personality.

Dr. Frankl's account of his three years in concentration camps, nearly all spent in slave labor and in a state of near- starvation, is surely one of the most tell- ing exposures of the terrors of the death camps. His entire family, with the exception of one sister, perished in these camps.

Dr. Gordon Allport in his preface asks the question which will occur to every reader. How could he — every posses- Sion lost, every value destroyed, suffer- ing from hunger, cold and brutality, hourly expecting extermination — how I could he find life worth preserving? A psychiatrist who personally has faced such extremities is a psychiatrist worth listening to," Dr. Allportffeels.

The theory of logotherapy which Dr. Frankl developed and later refined as a result of those harrowing years will be of intense interest to all readers of this book. A widespread concern for an expansion of his ideas has resulted in this revised and enlarged version of the book originally published under the title of From Death-Camp to Existentialism. Here his exposition of logotherapy is presented in much greater detail than in the first edition, under such headings as The Will to Meaning," Existential Frustration," The Existential Vacuum,' The Meaning of Love The Meaning of Suffering Life's Transitori ness, " The Collective Neurosis," and " Psychiatry Re-humanized." The relationship of logotherapy to existentialism, to the psychoanalysis of Freud and to the individual psychology of Adler is developed in these writings.

This brilliant work, speaking for the survival of human values even under conditions of utmost horror and stress, will offer a challenge to specialists in such fields as psychology, psychiatry, sociology, religion and education. At the same time it will assist the lay per- son in his search for a meaning for life despite modern anxieties in an uncertain world.
Notes: Translation of Ein Psycholog erlebt das Konzentrationslager.